Tag: snarky comments

It should be enjoyed in the privacy of your own home, never be mentioned in front of your mother, and should make you feel ashamed and delighted in equal measures… and it should cost you £35 for two hours, plus taxis. Hey, if I’m gonna pay for it I want a damn good deal.

Don’t worry, I’m still talking about Frankie Boyle. Although I have some stories about prostitution, since we’re on the subject. That’s a sentence that could raise a few eyebrows, so let me explain: I sometimes go to London on the train, and park my car at Manchester’s Piccadilly Station, right in the heart of the red light district. Coming home late at night I’d often get propositioned by strange, haggard women with voices like a choked drain, asking me if I want business. That’s how they do it: do you want business?

The first time somebody asked me that, I didn’t realise she was a hooker because it was winter, and she was dressed just like anybody else on a freezing Mancunian night. Sex with her must have been like 45 minutes of pass the parcel.

Anyway, I didn’t know she was a prostitute, and she was just wearing a coat and scarf, so I assumed she was lost. I thought I’d somehow misunderstod her, and she was asking me about some sort of business.

Her: Do you want business?

Me: What business is it you want?

Her: Want some business?

Me: Sorry… who are you looking for?

Etc

I wasn’t getting any closer to a comprehensible answer, and her – in hindsight – heroin addled speech patterns weren’t helping. So I decided to ask what the business specialised in, hoping this would help matters.

That certainly clarified what it was she was offering. Few, if any, businesses in that area specialise in anal for an extra twenty quid and a lift back to Harpurhey afterwards. As the saying goes, I made my excuses and left.

But at least it’s not as bad as my uncle Harry, who stopped at the lights on the way home from the butcher’s shop, and had a street prostitute hop uninvited into his car and sit on his gammon. That’s not a euphemism, by the way: she actually sat on the gammon he’d just bought. He threw it away and went to the chippy instead, but since then, “sitting on his gammon” has become a little euphemism in my family. Keep it, if you like it. It’s a good one.

Another favourite euphemism comes from something I heard on the radio. A woman reported that her child’s teacher had told her this: the child was asked to write a story about “what I did at the weekend”, and wrote that she’d woken up having a nightmare, and gone into her parents’ room for comfort, but that mummy and daddy were on the bed “having a quiet fight”.

Having a quiet fight, such an excellent phrase. Although personally, I love noisy sex. If it’s not noisy enough, I just turn down the telly and press a glass against the wall.

Now, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this blog isn’t my sex life, or about paying for sex. Perhaps I should have mentioned that earlier, but the introduction has kind of blathered on a bit. Sorry about that, and I hope you’re not disappointed that I’m no longer talking about sex. You probably are: my statistics show me how perverted you are.

I should explain that my blogs usually arise from something annoying me slightly. Sometimes they arise from things annoying me a lot, like when I hear about Republicans using made-up science to justify “legitimate rape“. But sometimes it’s just things that annoy me slightly, like Formula 1. But sometimes I decide to do a blog because Katy Red or Girl on the Net have posted something salacious, and it makes me want to reply. And when I do, I get about 100 times more visits, simply because it’s about sex. Don’t worry, I won’t let you down – there’s more sex stuff later on. But first, I want to tell you why Formula 1 annoys the hell out of me.

Lewis finishes another fine demonstration of his driving ability. Next on his itinerary: a shag with a tart.

Let’s pretend I’m Lewis Hamilton. I get in a stupid car that has no luggage space or stereo, and is covered in adverts for cancer. I noisily drive 120 feet, crash, and demand £1million

That, as far as I can see, is the definition of Formula 1. Really, what else happens? Yes, you’re right: as many times as 3 per season a car will overtake another car, sometimes successfully. But generally they all stay in the same order for what seems like days, giving the viewer the bizarre impression that they’re watching a car park travelling at 200mph.

In the process, the CO2 of a small city is spewed out into the air, and when the so-called race eventually ends a millionaire gobshite wastes a bottle of champagne and wanders off to fuck a Pussycat Doll.

Fucking a Pussycat Doll is not like fucking a prostitute. I may have started off talking about hookers, but now I’m talking about Pussycat Dolls. Not the same thing at all. In no way does the fact that she only dates very rich people mean her sexuality is influenced by money. In no way are these 5 ladies putting the “filthy” into “filthy lucre”.

The difference between these 5 talented musicians and 5 strippers is approximately 5 square inches of latex.

Actually…. just look at them. At times my moral centre goes slightly off-centre, and I forget the fact that I have no respect for them. They don’t have much respect for themselves, so why should I. Yes, they’re borderline hookers, but…

Goddammit, why have I given up sixsomes?

Anyway, I might be persuaded about certain favourable features of the Pussycat Dolls, but not about F1. Honestly, tell me I’m wrong. Actually, don’t. If you’re a big fan of F1 you may feel moved to comment about how wrong I am. If you feel moved, move, and keep on moving. I don’t want to know I’m wrong, because I’m right.

Anyway, this blog isn’t about sex or prostitution or Formula 1 or the Pussycat Dolls, in spite of the fact that I keep being dragged back there to look at that photo. It’s actually about those things we shouldn’t laugh about, but which we do anyway. I don’t know why, but apart from Frankie Boyle the undisputed masters of this art are old ladies. For example, today my girlfriend asked her nana whether she’d been watching the Paralympics, and her nana replied, “No – I hate to watch them struggle”.

I’m sorry, I know it’s very very wrong, but I have to laugh. Not at the Paralympians, who are without doubt majestic and inspiring. But at old ladies, and their startlingly wrong view of the world. It takes a special kind of special. And I don’t mean special like that.

It’s hardly a scientific proof that only women can do this, but most my the stories about mad things said in all seriousness feature a women.

My mum, watching two great whites attacking tuna on a David Attenborough programme, said “Gosh… you can see why they call them sharks!”

Also my mum, being checked for symptoms which ended up being Parkinson’s Disease, but at the time were suspected brain cancer: “Well, they gave me a brain scan and found nothing”

My sister-in-law, waking up as her flight was descending into Heathrow: “Are we landing? We’re a bit low, aren’t we?”

Also sister-in-law explaining why she wasn’t keen to live in a particular house: “I wouldn’t want to not live there if it wasn’t so unprivate”.

Honestly, I’ll give you a Nobel Prize if you can work that out in less than 10 minutes. I still get lost in the quadruple negatives. Perhaps women actually do have great brains: not only can they make sense of that convoluted gibberish, they can also say it out loud without laughing.

But I mustn’t be sexist about it. As I say, my small sample is hardly scientific, but then again neither is my mate’s mum, who won’t tie knots in the plastic bags for loose vegetables, because “knots make the bag heavier”.

Women: what on earth goes on in their pretty little heads?

I’d love to be a real sexist, but I’m not; I just like poking feminists, which is why I write things like that. It’s not that feminists are wrong, it’s just that anybody who takes themselves excessively seriously is great fun to poke with a stick.

But to be fair to feminists – which is something I rarely like to do, because they look so hot when they’re angry – men are idiots too. In fact, to be honest, it appears men are far more idiotic than women are. Looking beyond the everyday tragedy of women working as prostitutes – even the Pussycat Dolls – there are men who pay for it.

But what’s the point, when these delightful things exist? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the greatest sex toys in the entire world.

First, may I present this special, special… item… it’s hard to call it a toy… which is designed to make it feel as though a girl is licking your dangleberries while you’re poking your tallywacker into another lady.

I’ve had one or two interesting evenings in my time, but I don’t need to tell you about them. However, without revealing too much, I can tell you that such occurences can be pleasurable, as long as nobody gets hit in the face with a swinging bollock, or accidentally bitten on fast-moving nether regions. And I’m confident that many men have a fantasy of experiencing this sort of thing. So I can almost see the point in this invention – but I can’t help notice that neither girl has a head, torso, arms or legs. In fact, with its excised pudenda and disembodied tongue, what we have here is the very thing that Jack the Ripper was trying to build at home. And I suspect that knowledge will tend to reduce your enjoyment.

Next is this wonderful item. I don’t think I need to explain what the gentleman (if we can use that term for the buyer of this merchandise) is supposed to do, but let’s place it in context: rather than imagining it floating in pristine space, as the photographer has, let’s place it on your carpet.

Now what does it look like? It looks like a partially buried girl is attempting to raise the alarm by farting loudly.

And is it just the influence of the Olympics, or can you also picture it with the Union Jack painted on each latex fingernail? No? Okay then, that’s just me – reaching rock-bottom, and then starting to dig.

Next is this…

If this was being shown as part of Ricky Gervais’s stand up show, he’d simply project it on a screen, point, and let you laugh for 3 minutes.

I know the world is full of strange and unusual fetishes, but I didn’t realise “discarded concept from the art department of a David Cronenberg movie” was one of them. I’m not entirely sure what sort of demented mind comes up with stuff like this, but the website where I found it describes it, with amazing optimism, as “life-like”. It’s only life-like if your life consists of your plastic surgeon getting high on crack and muddling up the breast implant he had scheduled for the morning with the arse reduction he had scheduled for the afternoon.

And finally, there’s this.

I’m speechless.

I’m trying to imagine what purpose this serves, other than being the single most embarrassing thing you can give to a friend on his stag do.

I’m aware of the existence of ladyboys, and assume there’s a market for shemale porn. I’m not criticising anybody for having their own highly specific sexual fantasies and desires. We’re all perverts in our own way.

And I know I’m not an expert, so I may not be qualified to comment. But to the best of my knowledge, most – if not all – ladyboys all have heads and arms and legs.

They’re known for it. So what the fuck is that all about?

So if you ever find yourself gasping and covering your mouth in shame as you laugh at a Frankie Boyle joke, just remember this moment. And remember that no matter how appalling Boyle tries to be, he can’t beat sex toy manufactures. The man can’t even shave off his beard: what chance does he have with all that latex?

Firstly, there are those who are thin. You know them: they’re bastards. No matter what they eat or drink, or how long they spend sprawled on the sofa, they never put on an ounce. You think you want to look like one of them, but then you realise that they’re always, always, always cold.

It’s their own fault though. They live in Northern Europe, on the same latitude as the top half of Canada. If it wasn’t for the jetstream it would be -40° every winter, we’d all be Eskimo, and all those skinny people would die a bitter, freezing, horrible death.

That dripping sound you can hear is my heart bleeding piss for them. Skinny fuckers.

The truth is, we’re supposed to be pale and stodgy. There is no sun here to warm us up, so nature responds by demanding we pile on a couple of stone, and burn a little less coal. Thin people are destroying the environment, the selfish, skinny, gorgeous sods. In fact, they should all be consigned to the South of France, where the sun performs the same role as 4 inches of blubber performs in Hull: keeping your internal organs from freezing.

Even so, the scrawny swine look damn good, and you’re entirely right to hate them. Let’s gather them all up and shoot them. Come on, it’ll be fun; and it won’t take up much space either. We could probably fit every one of them into my living room.

The second type of person is fat. If you’re fat, I apologise for the following, hugely insulting paragraphs. You’ll notice I didn’t apologise to the thin people, but I probably should have. After all, fat people genuinely do have thicker skin, so you should be able to take a little ribbing. But no, you’re all going to be upset. I’m sorry about that. But you should be used to it by now, because the chances are you’ve been pudgy for a very long time.

At some stage, usually around the age of eight, a fat person’s body got used to handling food in a strange, ungodly way: rather than turning all that food into energy and burning it all night, their body decided to turn it into fat and store it in their waist, stomach, arse and thighs, just in case all the food in the world runs out next week. They’re not living in the now, they’re storing everything up for the future. Basically, their brain thinks they’re a camel.

And that’s it for them: they’re doomed. All media is controlled in warm places. That’s just a fact of life. Hollywood is in LA for a reason, and that reason is 40,000° celsius and rises in the East every morning. Even in Britain, the media is in the most southerly large city, because it’s warmer there than in Dundee.

So the media is, naturally, comprised of skinny people who do well in the broiling heat (“broiling heat” is a relative term when applied to London, but I think we can agree it’s generally a bit warmer than Belfast). And the media has decided it hates fat people, because they’re “different”.

Frankly, you fatties might as well all be paedophiles for the number of positive messages about you on TV and in the press. The only hope you have is that you become, as Ricky Gervais sensitively put it, “one of the jolly ones”. But what is there to be jolly about? Every single thing in culture screams that you’re unworthy as a human being, and the message has well and truly sunk in. Lower income, less sex and fewer friends – which I find odd, considering there are more and more fat people every year. Surely some of them want to make friends with another fat person?

The third type is everyone else: neither fat nor thin, just a typical, average, vaguely physically disappointing human being. It’s often hard to put your finger on what’s wrong with you, but something definitely is. You’re just… meh. Maybe you joined a gym, maybe you do a little hill-walking, maybe you work hard in the garden at the weekend. But despite it all, you’re average. And that means invisible.

But me, I’m none of those things. I’m the fourth thing. I’m that other shape that very few people are. I belong in a Victorian circus. I’m just… big.

I’m not tall. I’m not fat. I’m not muscular. It’s just that everything about me is on a scale it shouldn’t be. Actually, scratch that: the one part I’d love to be oversized is actually drearily normal, but the rest is freakish; like Billie Piper’s face.

All the parts of Billie Piper’s face are in the right positions, but every single one of them is vastly out of scale. Her lips belong on someone the size of Hagrid. Her jaw is alarmingly vast and geometrical, like something a dangerously modern architect would put up outside a public building. Her teeth appear to be trying to escape the confines of her mouth so they can search for a new home in a skull 80% bigger than her own. Her eyebrows are like a small wood, and I half expect to see a badger emerge from them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a lovely-looking girl, and everything about her face works fine. I just don’t understand how it all works fine. It should be deeply disturbing, but it isn’t – at least not until you sit and look at each feature in turn, and then realise that every individual feature seems to be appearing through a magnifying glass.

Well that’s like my whole body. It’s not deformed, it’s just that (almost) no part of it seems to have known when to stop growing.

Let’s start with my head. About a million years ago, when I was in my late teens, I worked part-time at Dunn and Co. Does anyone else remember them? They’re gone now, and if you’re younger than 40 the chances are that all of this is a mystery to you. Dunn’s was a chain of what can only be described as “old man shops”. They were essentially brown in the way everything in the early 70s appeared to be. Walking into Dunn’s was like entering a spectacularly dull episode of The Sweeney, in which nobody growled “you’re nicked, tinkerbell” or drove a transit van in a tight circle, but far too many people wore hats, was strangely static, and was, well, brown.

When I was working there I learned about hats. If you’ve bought a hat for going on holiday (which is just about the only reason most people buy one) it will probably be in sizes S, to XL. But back in Ye Olden Days, when Dunn and Co were still a going concern, hats were measured by the size of the wooden block on which they were created, typically from size 6 3/8 to 7 1/2. That was the normal human range.

But not for me. Oh no. My size was 7 7/8, which is a full 3 sizes bigger than the biggest hat stocked by the UK’s biggest retailer of hats. It’s one of the reasons I won’t accept any compliments – if my head gets any bigger it could reach critical mass and implode into a neutron star. We’re in dangerous territory, so please, no praise.

You’d think having stonking great head wouldn’t be a major problem, and on a day-to-day basis it isn’t. In fact, it’s a positive boon for my lady-friend, who finds the size of my head hilarious, and spends hours walking around it like a curious tourist, pointing at it and taking photos until I reward her by rubbing trifle in her face (no, that’s not a euphamism).

But now and again I hit a problem. Problem number one is glasses, which I’ve worn since I was 5, like a proper little nerd. If your head is normal, you can get practically any pair of specs want. But I’m limited to about 1% of the frames available. Everything else just won’t fit. My head is quite literally 3 inches wider than the average pair of glasses. You know how “funny” it is when you borrow someone’s glasses in the pub, wear them and pull a face? Well it’s even funnier when they slip off your head and over your shoulders.

Problem number two is sport, especially go-karting and riding horses. I don’t do either of them often – once each, in fact. But the main reason I avoid them is that it’s a disaster when they try to find a helmet for me to wear. “It’s fine”, they say, “I’m sure we’ll have a helmet to fit you”. And then I turn up, and they try. And try. And try.

After a few hours they send Olga down into the basement to blow the dust of that thing the Elephant Man once wore, and with a little lubrication and a lot of pulling and tugging they manage to force my head into it. I tend to lose an ear in the process, and there’s often a visit to A&E and an angle-grinder involved in the removal of the helmet, but at least I got to sit on a horse.

My chest is no better. Suits have a thing called a “six-inch drop”, which means the difference between the size of the chest and the size of the waist is 6 inches. If you have a 40 inch chest, you have a 34 inch waist. This is normal. This is how a man’s body works. We’re much more standardised than women.

But not me. Oh no. My chest is 46 inches. And my waist? 34 inches. That’s a half a foot smaller than it should be. That’s ridiculous. It’s not that I’m like some gnarly body-builder, all pectorals and grease and domestic violence. I’ve just got a ribcage that forgot to stop growing.

You know those people who say they’re big-boned, but are really just normal-boned with a lot of lard on top? Yeah, well I’m big-boned.

You know those people who say they’ve got water-retention, but in truth they have beer-and-pizza-retention? Not me. I’m not retaining anything, I’m just subtly deformed in a way that makes everyone think I’m fat.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely fat. I could afford to lose a stone, I’m sure, but I’m not fat fat. I’m just normal English fat: more lardy than I should be, but nothing a couple of weeks avoiding Hobnobs couldn’t fix.

The only people on the planet (as far as I know) who have my “fat but not fat” physique are James Gandolfini and Bob Hoskins. James looks like he’d put you a box, and Bob looks like the box he’d put you in. It’s not fabulous company to find yourself in. Fancy them, do you ladies? Thought not.

So I’m trying to have second thoughts about skinny fuckers and fat people. Yes, there are a lot of drainpipes who could eat a pie or two more, and a lot more wobble-bottoms who could afford to cut out pies completely and have a brisk walk a few times a week. But I know from my own weird body that sometimes nature has a sick sense of humour, and no amount of dieting can change how you look.